Big Data Startup OneOcean Provides GIS Data Sharing for Science

How can scientists best share the gigabytes of data related to ocean research? OneOcean has the answer.

OneOcean, a stealthy Seattle startup whose board includes MySpace founder Aber Whitcomb, sees that as an opportunity. And the 15-person company just reeled in $6 million from private investors to bring its cloud-based “Ocean Data Exchange” to market next month, GeekWire has learned.

One funder from the private investors, GLE Capitol, provided the original $2 million in funding. The CEO, Don Pickering also founded Altrec.com, a site I use quite a lot; it sells outdoor gear. He explains the problem and solution:

“Ocean files, surveys and data are extremely large files … and the industry standard has been to FedEx hard drives around to move data,” said Pickering. “We’ve assembled a team of cloud, geospatial and GIS experts to solve a problem and build a platform where we can easily catalog and aid in the transferability of these files.”

He sees users from oil and gas, energy, and telecomms among others. And, he feels GIS is behind in tapping the best possible technology.

“This is an area where we have gone deep, and marine GIS is a very specific niche,” he said. “And so we understand and have developed technologies to work with that type of data…. We’ve taken big data and storage and cloud and SaaS, which is our backgrounds … and merged it with the GIS and geospatial world. The GIS world is really sort of behind the curve in terms of the rest of IT in how they leverage best available technologies, and marine GIS is even more so.”

There's no word on tech behind the offering or support of standards at this point.